Hello,
As you may already know, with the efforts from Ilmari, DevGuide is now
imported as multi-page chapters into the TDF Wiki. There were some
performance and formatting problems that are now resolved, or will be
fixed soon thanks to Ilmari and Guilhem. Hopefully, we can have single
page version of all the chapters soon:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/DevGuide
But, other than minor improvements that I am working on, we need ideas
for improving DevGuide that may need major changes.
I see at least these issues with the current version of DevGuide:
1. It is old! 13 years has passed since the publication (2009)
a. It discusses things that are no longer relevant today
* Changes between old versions like OOo 1 and 2
* Old setups
* Old configurations
b. It does not discuss the recent changes
2. It discusses multiple languages
a. Most of the examples are in Java which is not very useful today
b. Multiple languages, from Java to C++ and C# are used in the book
* It is hard to follow
* It does not work as a reference with the tutorial style of the
book
* What is the target audience?
3. Chapters are very lengthy
* Chapter 2 is > 200 pages
* There are other giant chapters, another 5 chapters with > 100
pages
* Average number of pages for the chapters 1-19 is > 80 pages
4. Everything needs to be tested
* We are not sure if the code snippets really work now
* Many things have changed
5. The book structure is not optimized for print
* It uses hyperlinks instead of pointing to chapters and sections
* Several hyperlinks are used that are not visible in print
6. Screenshots are old
* They are taken with Windows XP
7. Images and diagrams are not editable
8. We need ways to create a PDF version
* Manual changes may be necessary
I think removing old stuff, and sticking to C++ would be a good idea. We
may then have to convert some of the Java examples to C++.
I would be happy to hear suggestions on making DevGuide better.
Regards,
Hossein
--
Hossein Nourikhah, Ph.D.
Developer Community Architect
The Document Foundation (TDF)
Email: hossein at libreoffice.org
Wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:Hossein
IRC: hossein at libreoffice-dev room in LiberaChat Network
irc://irc.libera.chat/#libreoffice-dev